Personal scooters are a motorized means to enable mobility-limited persons the freedom of getting to places and locations they would not have been able to walk to. To enhance their usefulness scooters are transported beyond walking distances in cars, vans or trucks. Transporting is done by placing the scooter inside or on top of the vehicle or by attaching it to the side of the vehicle. Transporting by common privately owned sedan cars is limited by the bulk and weight of scooters. To enable transporting in a compact state, some scooters are designed to be easily disassembled into several components or folded into a more compact size. Disassembly and reassembly may be complicated and requires the manual handling of heavy components.
Prior art for the transporting of wheelchairs and scooters include several devices and methods. Typically, U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,424 (Jones et al.), incorporated herein by reference, describes a rack for mounting on the rear of a car for carrying a wheelchair. The wheelchair has a seat-supporting framework that includes two parallel horizontal frame members close to the ground. The rack includes a pair of chair support members for engaging the two horizontal frame members with the chair on the ground and powered lift members for raising the chair to a traveling position above the ground and for lowering the chair downwardly to the ground for removing the chair from the rack thereby eliminating any need for anyone to lift the chair.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,361 (Peterson), incorporated herein by reference, discloses a motor vehicle attachable carrier for scooters. The carrier has a mast with a power lift which moves a foldable platform between a lowered and a raised position. A weight-sensitive pedal on the platform responds to the presence of a load and defeats the platform fold-up mechanism. In the absence of a load, the platform will assume a folded position against the mast when raised. A fold-down lever with an attached foot pivots to engage the scooter when the platform is raised in a horizontal position with a load thereon.
US Patent Application 2006/0093,462 (Pradnas), incorporated herein by reference, describes a scooter lifting mechanism in which worm gear on the scooter itself is used to lift the scooter into position to be carried on, attached to the rear of a standard automobile vehicle. The self-lifting scooter uses its own battery power to operate the lifting mechanism. The bracket that carries the scooter can be removed and stored in the vehicle when not in use.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,466,111 (Meyer), incorporated herein by reference, discloses a wheelchair and lifting apparatus and method for loading a wheelchair and its occupant into a desired position in a vehicle, such as the driver's position, by attaching the wheelchair to an open door of the vehicle, utilizing the seat-height adjustment mechanism of the wheelchair that varies the height of the seat of the wheelchair relative to its wheels to lift the wheelchair off the ground and closing the vehicle door so as to position the wheelchair inside the vehicle in an unassisted manner by the occupant, and reversing this sequence of operation for unloading the wheelchair and its occupant from the vehicle.
Prior art disclosures require that vehicles transporting scooters be equipped with designated instruments and machinery to facilitate loading, downloading and carrying-on (externally attached or carried-in) of the scooters. To accommodate transportation of scooters large and relatively strong vehicles are required.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the dependency on auxiliary-devices for lifting and lowering scooters for the purpose of easy transporting of scooters.
Another object of the present invention is to introduce a scooter with self-lifting and loading capabilities.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide such a scooter with self-lifting and loading capabilities, which is automatically or semi-automatically operated.
More objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent after reading the present specification and considering the accompanying figures.